Sunday, December 11, 2011

The "Evilution" test

Saw a link to this on pz myers site and thought it would be fun to answer the questions off the top of my head.

This test is from a creationist website linked below. http://missinguniversemuseum.com/Evtest.htm

Evolution Test

Students, give this test to your teachers. When they fail it, ask them why they are teaching this nonsense!

Teachers, give this test to your students if you really want them to know the truth about evolution!

1. Which evolved first, male or female?Most single celled organisms don't have male or female, they reproduce by asexual reproduction and do forms of gene transfer. I know that some protozoans reproduce by producing reproductive cells that are not morphologically distinct and can fuse with each other. I guess if we are going by the def. of male=sperm-like-gamete and female=egg-like-gamete, I would guess female/hermaphrodite, because it is most likely that sperm-like cells evolved in organisms that could produce both motile gametes and egg-like gametes, if you want to be pedantic sperm-like cells came from female like egg-gametes.

2. How many millions of years elapsed between the first male and first female?That's a hard one and I don't know the answer and I bet that no one does, but here is a guess, if we are talking about the physical separation of the sexes male and female into organisms which only produce either male or female gametes, then that exists in early plants, such as mosses. There are male, female, and male-female mosses, so my guess is plants probably evolved this feature relatively quickly, i'm guessing a couple million years. Animals seem to have independently evolved male female separation cnidarians and ctenophores have some species that have distinct sexual forms, which most likely evolved rapidly just as in plants I'd say in a couple million years, but I am not sure if animal male-female separation evolved before plant male-female separation. Actually the questions wording can be taken literally and would mean that the first female was ~1 billion of years before a male, or that depending on your def. of a female, you can't have a male without a female so they came out from hermaphrodite progenitors in a single generation.

3. List at least 9 of the false assumptions made with radioactive dating methods.False assumptions is a tricky term, this question is based on a false assumption, it assumes that radioactive dating is based on incorrect assumptions. I would argue that radioactive dating is based on, not false assumptions, but known and acceptable assumptions.

4. Why hasn't any extinct creature re-evolved after millions of years?This can be done in lab, if you consider bacteria a creature, you can artificially select for mutants, destroy the mutants after genome sequencing, then artificially select for the same mutants, if you successfully reproduce all of the genomic changes, you would technically re-evolve the "creature" same can be done with species.

6. How many millions of years between each in question 5?If we assume that the evolution of eyes in cnidarians was present in ancient cnidarians, I guess we could say 600 mya, so bilaterian fossils are found around 550MYA, which equals 50MY for eye-brain evolution. I'm not answering the rest of the 20 combinations.

7. If we all evolved from a common ancestor, why can't all the different species mate with one another and produce fertile offspring?This is mostly due to genetic differences. Horses and donkey's can still mate with each other, but their offspring can't. Most dogs, wolves, coyotes and jackals can mate, but some jackals can't mate with other jackals because they have less chromosomes and only mate with their own species. Same thing goes for some salamanders. Heck, some humans can't mate with other humans.

8. List any of the millions of creatures in just five stages of its evolution showing the progression of a new organ of any kind. When you have done this, you can collect the millions of dollars in rewards offered for proof of evolution!Sure, mullusc eye evolution starting at pigmented light sensing cells, to infolded cup like eyes, to pin hole eyes, to semi-lens eye, to lens covered eyes. And, hopefully all the people who studied these features of eye evolution in mulluscs received their millions of dollars of funds for a job well done.

9. Why is it that the very things that would prove Evolution (transitional forms) are still missing?Some are missing, some are not missing... Dead things decay, unless fossilized, which is a rare occurance.

10. Explain why something as complex as human life could happen by chance, but something as simple as a coin must have a creator. (Show your math solution.)lol, human life didn't happen by chance, natural selection isn't the same as chance. A coin is actually not simple at all, take a current US penny for example, it is a complex alloy of zinc, copper, etc, with a specific shape and design, In all of the universe a penny has never occurred naturally. As opposed to humans which do occur naturally.

11. Why aren't any fossils or coal or oil being formed today?They are... Mummies are fossils, coal and oil can be produced from plants.

12. List 50 vestigial or useless organs or appendages in the human body.I don't think there are 50. I don't think that evolution often selects for vestigial organs, it's survival of the fittest remember, not survival of the inefficient.

13. Why hasn't anyone collected the millions of dollars in rewards for proof of evolution?Actually, our lab just got a grant to study the evolution of novel cell types for a million dollars. I'd say that at least a billion dollars goes into research into parts of evolution every year, especially if you include parts of medical research.

14. If life began hundreds of millions of years ago, why is the earth still under populated?Underpopulated in what way? Try to find a single non-artificial space that doesn't have a living organism in it on this planet...

15. Why hasn't evolution duplicated all species on all continents?All continents are different, different topology, different weather patterns, etc.. Where continents or islands share similarities we see similar animals, wolves and tasmanian tigers, Koala's and sloths, kiwi and dodo.